Niamh Davenport

Exactly.

We've new figures from Angarda Siocona and they show an increase of over 20% in reports of these investment frauds in 2025.

That's compared to 2024.

And the losses associated with them are €20 million.

So huge amounts of losses and we're seeing this trend continuing into 2026, which is concerning.

Exactly.

Investment scams are nothing new and most investment scams tend to follow the same pattern.

But what fraudsters do is they exploit current news trends.

So now that we're seeing the coverage on the state backed savings and investment schemes, they're using the language around these to make their scams appear more legitimate.

For example, last year, it wasn't really politicians we were seeing in these ads.

It was more Irish celebrities instead.

So they just use whatever's in the news to make their ads appear real, I suppose.

People are definitely falling victim to the, everyone's looking for ways to invest their money.

And we are seeing the age group that's mostly targeted with these is the fifties age group.

And I think the reason investment scams in general are so convincing is, you know, cost of living crisis, things are getting more expensive.

You're planning for retirement.

You want to make sure that you've got the best, your money secured in the best areas.

So that's why these, these scams are very, very,

interesting to people I suppose.

So it's kind of both actually what happens is you see one of the ads online you're asked to click on a link for more information and you're encouraged to register filling in a short form with contact details and you'll receive more information.